


Loser Still Fights

by jesterlady



Category: Lost
Genre: Character Death Fix, Episode Related, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Minor Character Death, Murder, One Shot, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While out Catch 22-ing, Charlie decides Mikhail is too big a threat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loser Still Fights

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So I thought to myself, who is the one person who could die and that would mean Charlie's survival? No regeneration for you this time, Patchy!  
> Disclaimer: I don't own Lost. Some lines are from the show. The title is from a song by Caedmon’s Call.

Charlie had a gut instinct. As a general rule, he wasn’t prone to them. In fact, he was more apt to indecision, regret, worry, flightiness. They were common failings of his and he indulged them more often that not. They caused him to obsess over things, to vacillate when he should hold firm. They're the reason he let rock and roll take over his life, why he let Liam bully him, why drugs were such a relief, why girls got away, and God seemed ever illusive.

When Charlie got a gut feeling, he followed it. It usually led to the best moments of his life. Like the day he decided to jump into his father’s arms, the first time he wrote a song, the minute he went to that woman’s rescue outside Covent Gardens, the day he got on Oceanic 815, the night he went and introduced himself to Claire, getting her to move to the caves, volunteering to save Jack, and throwing his stash in the fire, the moment he pulled the trigger and Ethan fell dead, the need to throw every single statue in the water, getting in the van with Hurley. And…this moment. 

This was the moment where he knew Desmond was wrong. The moment where he couldn’t shake the feeling that this Other was the wrong Other to let get away. After the other three went back to the camp, Charlie followed the man who had tried to steal their chance off the island. 

Charlie wasn’t good at tracking, couldn’t be quiet in the jungle if he tried, but he knew this was what he was supposed to do. It was as if the island was helping him, even if that’s something only Locke would articulate out loud. Charlie hated the man, but he respected this island and he gave himself up to its help.

He found the Other suddenly, as if the man had been waiting for him.

“I felt you would choose this path,” the man said.

“I can’t let you bollocks everything up.”

The man grinned, eerie shadows playing over his mismatched face.

“Then we will continue our course.” 

He crouched into a fighting posture, but Charlie shook his head. He was no fighter. He took out the flare gun from where he’d been holding it behind his back and pulled the trigger. The flaming point rushed through the air and hit the man square in the chest. 

Charlie walked slowly to the fallen man and knelt beside him. The one-eyed Other was fading fast, but Charlie couldn’t sit there all night. He held his hand over the other man’s nose and mouth until he was sure the Other was dead. Then he stumbled into the bushes and retched.

He didn’t have long before Desmond and the others would come looking for him, but Charlie found a wide bamboo stick and unearthed a shallow grave, putting his second kill to rest. He was tired, aching, and restless when he finished, but he still felt he had been right. It was time to get back and so he did.

He stopped at a stream before he got to the others and washed as much evidence of his actions away as he could. He didn’t want anyone to know about this. Maybe, if the nightmares got worse, he could tell Claire, but his sins were piling up too quickly to share with others.

Desmond gave him a look and Charlie again wondered how much the man could see and what his visions were truly like. But the Scot didn’t ask any questions, too excited to move the woman back to their camp and be reunited with Penny. Charlie was thankful for that fact. 

When they finally got back to the beach, they took the woman into Hurley’s tent and Charlie was content to let Desmond take over deciding what to do. He was too tired to make any more decisions. He slipped over to Claire’s tent, not wanting to wake her, but needing to see her. He found her stirring to a wakeful Aaron’s cries and slipped into daddy mode easily.

“There, there, Aaron,” he soothed. 

The baby quieted, lulled by a familiar voice, and Claire lay back down on the bed. 

“You’re back,” she stated quietly. 

He nodded, without looking up from Aaron, who was rapidly falling back asleep.

Claire sat up again and turned his head to look at her. He flinched under her clear gaze, even in the semi-darkness. 

“Come here,” she said and tugged his arm. 

He put Aaron back in his crib and yielded to her pulling. He lay down on her bed and she wrapped her arms around him. He felt deeply grateful and that was the feeling that allowed him to go to sleep.

***

When he popped up out of the water, lungs bursting from want of air, all he felt was the incredible sensation of being alive. Even being captured and semi-tortured by some rather bloodthirsty Others was a relief, because it meant he wasn’t done yet.

Desmond burst into the moon pool at just the right moment, while the two crazies were back in their blinking light room. Charlie had all the information and Desmond had the opportunity. A spear gun was a very handy tool. They had the two ladies tied up very quickly.

Of course, when more Others in scuba gear broke through the pool and started shooting, things got more hairy. Desmond and Charlie couldn’t cover their hostages in time and the brunette died instantly. The blonde was hurled backwards and lay in a limp heap, blood pooling beside her. Desmond dove into the water and wrestled a gun from one of the men, shooting the other. Charlie grabbed the downed brunette’s gun from where they had laid it and shouted for Desmond to get clear. The other man ducked under and then the last Other was gone.

Charlie hurried to the blonde's, to Bonnie’s, side and used every charm he could think of to get the code. Reminding her of exactly how she had died seemed to do the trick. As he stared at her in surprise over her last words, his thoughts ran towards the ironic.

“I guess it’s a good thing that your flashes involve a dying musician,” he told Desmond, getting off the floor. 

They covered the two women with blankets and hauled the men out of the water. 

“Scuba gear there,” Desmond pointed out. 

“You getting any flashes?” Charlie asked, rather apprehensively.

“No,” Desmond said. 

“Meet you back here then.”

Charlie grinned and went into the room.

He closed his eyes and pulled on all his music memory, tapping out the notes to _Good Vibrations_. The light turned off and he waited for one uneasy moment. Nothing happened. He turned to leave and then the static filled up the screen in front of him.

His conversation with Penny was one of confused verbs and interrupting each other, but it was nothing to the tearful reunion Desmond and Penny then had. Of course, once they found out that Penny wasn’t on Naomi’s boat, they had to cut the conversation short. Penny promised to find them and Desmond wept as they went back up to the outrigger. 

But Charlie wasn’t thinking about Penny or the new danger or his cuts and bruises or even the people he’d killed. He was basking in the glow of being alive. It made him almost numb to the outside world, to Desmond’s plans and the wetness of his clothes and to Hurley’s excited hug. In a daze, he went by his and Claire’s tent and changed, automatically scooping up his ring from the cradle. Guess she hadn’t seen it then. In fact, he didn’t really feel whole again until they arrived at the cockpit and Claire’s hair came into view and he was crushing her and Aaron in his arms, tasting her lips and slipping his wet logged note into her hands himself.


End file.
